Friday, September 28, 2012

Cooking up trouble: Dave Engledow's World's Best Father photo collection sees him pose alongside daughter Alice Bee in a series of very unlikely scenarios

A hilarious series of photographs featuring a father and his toddler daughter have become a huge online hit
Titiled The World's Best Father, Dave Engledow, from Tahoma Park, Maryland, can be seen posing alongside adorable two-year-old Alice Bee in a number of unlikely scenarios.
They show Mr Engledow apparently losing to his little girl in an arm-wrestling match, reading Twilight to her at bedtime, and driving his car as she giggles in the carrier on its roof.

Distracted: The World's Best Father idea was sparked by a joke photo (left) in which Mr Engledow pours milk from Alice's bottle into his coffee. Another image sees the pair learning ballet together in pink tutus (right)

The collection, published on Kickstarter and Facebook, shows the youngster seemingly washing dishes, ironing, vacuuming and whipping up pancakes for her father's breakfast in bed.
She is even seen sitting in a steaming pot on the stove, holding a lit flame and having apparently sliced her father's fingers with a pizza cutter.

Of course little Alice Bee is not really placed in any danger - Mr Engledow is a Photoshop whiz having studied photojournalism in college, and each image is usually a composite of many individual photos, and can take up to 20 hours to create.
He revealed that the first photo in the series was produced as a joke, shared only with family and friends.

He is seen absent-mindedly clutching the baby like a football while pouring milk from her bottle into his coffee.
'I wanted to capture the dazed, sleep-deprived obliviousness of the new father...' he wrote.
'Right before staging the shot, inspiration hit and I decided that the shot might be stronger if the coffee mug said something like "father of the year" or some similar superlative so I purchased the mug that has since made an appearance in all 56 (and counting) images in this photo series.'

Fancy a slice? Poor Mr Engledow loses a finger after allowing Alice to cut the pizza

Flipping good fun! Alice Bee makes her father pancakes for his breakfast in bed

Scary stuff: Clearly Alice Bee doesn't think much of the Twilight saga as a bedtime story

You missed a bit! Apparently if Alice makes a mess, she must learn to clean it up herself

Busy Bee: Multiple Alices cause havoc in the kitchen while Mr Engledow's back is turned

Heavy lifting: Perhaps inspired by the London games, Mr Engledow puts Alice in training for the next Olympics

Mr Engledow received such a positive reaction, he followed it with a second, this time themed around July 4th, which was approaching at the time.
It showed Alice Bee holding a lit match and chewing on a box of fireworks, as he absent-mindedly reads the sports section of the newspaper.
It was from this point that the World's Best Father series truly took off, and Mr Engledow created countless other images starring his young daughter.

So THAT'S where my cup went! Apparently Alice will put anything in her mouth